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Some of the world’s leading volcanologists and geothermal engineers have signed up to a $100m magma drilling project in a bid to help protect millions of people, towns and cities across the world from volcano disasters; and to make a strategic step in scaling up the use of geothermal energy.

So far, 38 research institutes and companies from 11 countries have signed up to the Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) project. These include Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The project is gaining wider international recognition, with Mexico, Switzerland, and Japan taking an interest following the 2017 Paris meeting. The collaboration is seeking to raise $30m for the first drilling phase to make the research facilities available to the scientific community by 2020. The facilities would be open to the international science community for a 30-year-programme of research, including repeated drilling, probing and sampling of the magma body.

The KMT project team, from its Icelandic office, is working up its science, technical drilling and business plans to approach research funding agencies and foundations to raise the initial $30m required to deliver the research infrastructure. The remaining $70m would fund a 30-year program of strategic scientific research at the magma chamber.

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“The Krafla Magma Testbed will be the place to develop our fundamental science of the Earth system; new ways of understanding and monitoring volcanoes; our ability to extract and exploit geothermal energy sources; and new technology and materials that function in the most extreme conditions we can access on Earth.” by Paolo Papale, Director of Research from Italy’s Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia